Jewelry

"What's all this fuss about Soviet jewelry?"--Emily Litella, Saturday Night Live

I don't know much about jewelry.  I was born in February, so my birthstone is an amethyst.  I've heard of the Mohs scale that ranks gems according to hard they are, with diamonds at the top. (You can tell fool's gold because it's harder than the real thing!) And I know some of their colors:  rubies are red, emeralds green, sapphires blue, pearls mostly white.  That's about what I know.

I've read about the blue Hope Diamond said to bring bad luck.  It's been displayed in Washington, D.C., since about 1959, and Washington has definitely been running out of luck!

My mother used to have a Japanese jewel box with a Japanese scene inside.  She may have got it in the 1930s, before Japan was at war with the west.

I read that big drug dealers now use diamonds as their currency, because they're easier to move around than huge piles of cash.  I also read that Napoleon had a carriage lined with diamonds in case he had to make a quick getaway.  Diamonds are forever, but who cares?  If almost nothing lasts forever, then the things that do become irrelevant because they've outlasted everything else in their world.